Akita Neru

Akita Neru (亞北ネル (あきたねる)) is a FANLOID derivative character. She is acknowledged by Crypton Future Media, Inc., the publisher of the Character Vocal Series for VOCALOID2, for commercial use.

History
The exact origins of Neru vary and within the fandom this has caused some confusion. However, there has been a consistency with names and phrases despite different retellings. This section will list three of the most notable sources.

Vocaloid Wiki
On October 14 of 2007, when the Hatsune Miku movement was on the rise beyond expectations, a Japanese TV station suddenly broadcasted a program that stereotyped Miku users as "anime freaks without stable work experience". Three days later, Miku's pictures became unsearchable on main search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Japan, and in the following two days, Miku's article was deleted from the Japanese Wikipedia.

This news became widespread or "flamed up (炎上した)" on 2ch bulletin boards with the rumor that an advertising agency which had a strong influence in the Japanese music industry was behind the series of "anti-Miku negative campaign," in an attempt to purge Miku and indie musicians from the music trend. Then, numerous comments were posted that denied the rumor, or "put off the fire (消火する)," followed by the phrases "飽きた、寝る. (Got bored. Going to bed.)" or "寝る、お前らも寝ろよ.  (Gonna go to bed. Follow me, y'all!). Yet those comments drew nothing but negative responses from 2ch netizens. The contributors of such posts were branded as "puppets of the agency". The netizens joked about the "puppets" and made a spoof character for these posts as "Akita Neru". Later Smith Hioka, an illustrator, finalized the concept art of Neru. She came to represent the tsundere culture of Vocaloid.

Google and Yahoo! Japan announced that the search failure was a technical problem and had nothing to do with the advertising agency or the TV program. The Wikipedia page removal was the result of copyright violation, which also had no relation to the agency. Still, the rumor about the "Miku-hating agency" persists within the Japanese fandom presently.

On April 1 2008, Crypton adopted Neru as an official derivative character of Hatsune Miku. This, along with other derivatives such as: Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Sakine Meiko, and Tako Luka.

Vocaloid Otaku Forums
On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported Hatsune Miku was suspected to be victim of censorship by Google and Yahoo!, since images of Miku did not show up on the image searches. Google and Yahoo denied any censorship on their part, blaming the missing images on a bug that does not only affect "Hatsune Miku" but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible. Images of Miku were relisted on Yahoo on October 19. (from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid#Hatsune_Miku )

In addition, some scandals that insulted Vocaloid occurred in October, 2007.

At this time, 2ch BBS was thrown into a great uproar. A rumor that it was string-pulling by the advertising agency (Dentsu Co.) which failed in the promotion of the virtual idol in the past spread. The comments which tried to quiet this uproar were posted many to 2ch by certain persons in this time. They posted many comments which insulted Vocaloid and Vocaloid fans.

When an angry fan chased the sending origin of these persons, it was recognized that their comments were made by cell phones. In addition, from another follow-up survey, it was recognized that it was an act by a famous string-pulling company.

It is Akita Neru that the person of this problem was made to be a Moe character. She works as a part timer performing string-pulling with a cell phone.

(The first picture of Akita Neru by Smith Hioka) http://neru.cdx.jp/neru.jpg



Word bubbles
 * Left 1 - Huh? I don't get you! Are you some disgusting otaku?
 * Left 2 - Geeze, I'm tired of this!!
 * Right - Anyway, you're just a bunch of disgusting otaku making a fuss. Ahh, so gross, so gross.
 * Phone - Pi pi pip

Profile ggrUks = ggrks = "google it, you scum"
 * Age - 17
 * Height - 150cm
 * Weight - 38kg
 * Genre of Specialty - Forum posting in place of some customers, Astroturfing
 * Boards of Specialty - News Bulletins+, News Bulletins, News for VIP
 * Regular Patrons - Den 2u, TεS and ggrUks. These two companies were once assumed to be insulting Hatsune Miku.

Danbooru Wiki
Akita Neru (亞北ネル) in phonetic reading it sounds like "I Quit. Going to sleep." (Aa, kita. Neru) She started out as a meme on 2channel, where a troll user started thread crapping all Vocaloid related threads. Some user commented that he wouldn't get angry only if the troll was a cute girl.

Thus Akita Neru, a tsundere non-Vocaloid net-chara was born. Her image color is orange-ish yellow and her character item is a cell phone. Her design was created by Smith Hioka (スミス･ヒオカ).

Neru is sometimes written as a Miku wannabe, others as the anti-hero of the Vocaloid personage. She mainly represents forum/bbs trolls, those who don't have enough patience to use the Vocaloid software, or those who gave up using Vocaloid.

Concept
Neru came to represent the tsundere culture of Vocaloid. The fandom displays her personality mainly as hostile but she is also known to be displayed in a more friendlier manner, such as having a crush on Kagamine Len, who is another Vocaloid 2 by Crypton. Other aspects of Neru is being a representation of a forum/bbs troll, a Miku wannabe, and a anti-hero of the Vocaloid personage.

A popular portrayal of her actions is that she's always seen texting on her cellphone or slacking about. According to the creator, she has an inherent dislike for Otakus.

Despite Neru being a girl that does things her way, a common fan description is that Neru is employed in a writing agency for a rate of 700 yen per hour. This is a reference to the findings regarding the IP address of the "puppets of advertising agency," revealed to belong to a writing agency company which hired part-time workers for the mentioned pay rate. The nature of what kind of writings the agency orders were never revealed fully, but is speculated to range from common trolling to mercenary work and borderline harassment via bashing. Despite the information, it is nothing more than unconfirmed rumors, and Neru so far has not been illustrated officially to engage in such behavior.

She sometimes speaks in Tohoku dialect or Akita dialect; people speaking in such a dialect usually live or grew up in the Tohoku region. This is a reference to her family name Akita, and the prefecture's name.

Etymology
Her name is a play on words, Akita (亞北) is taken from "飽きた" or "get bored" while Neru (ネル) from "寝る" or "go to bed". Neru is regarded as a "BOUKALOID" (in Japanese, 防火ロイド or 防火LOID) - a play on words. It literally means Fireproof-loid and has the same pronunciation as Vocaloid in Japanese.

Appearance
On November 1, 2007, Neru's design was released, it is similar to that of Hatsune Miku, a VOCALOID2 developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media, Inc.. She has yellow hair consisting of an odd length of short and long, the long hair is styled into a left side-ponytail held by a blue futuristic ribbon. This does not need to physically touch Neru's hair to keep it in place. She has a stray hair at the top of her head and nose length bangs, her eyebrows are thick and her eyes are tsurime (upward-pointing) eyelids/eyelashes. On her left upper arm is the red mark "DEN2", its significance is currently unexplained and said to stand for the "anti-Miku advertising agency", rumored to be a supposedly-powerful entity in the music industry of Japan. Due to this, details were intentionally withheld for the safety of Neru's creator.

Her top is grey in color and sleeveless with a yellow hem, below her yellow necktie is a triangular cut that shows her navel and the back has two circular holes. The rest of her attire is black with yellow trim. She wears detached sleeves, a pleated skirt with bike shorts and thigh boots. On her left thigh is a garter purse that holds a yellow clamshell cellphone which is presumed to be a Motorola V3X.

Relations

 * Hatsune Miku, character base and voice
 * Kagamine Rin, character voice
 * Akita Nero, younger brother

Vocal settings
Here are some vocal settings by fans. Do note that these are not widely accepted and simple here as an example.

VOCALOID2 Hatsune Miku
 * BREATHINESS (BRE) / -30
 * BRIGHTNESS (BRI) / 30
 * CLEARNESS (CLE)  / 30
 * GENDER FACTOR (GEN) / 15
 * OPENING (OPE) / -15

VOCALOID2 Kagamine Rin (Act2) - Approximation of Neru's voice as heard in the VOCALOID PV cover of Honey.
 * BREATHINESS (BRE) / -10
 * BRIGHTNESS (BRI) / -20
 * CLEARNESS (CLE)  / 20
 * GENDER FACTOR (GEN) / 39
 * OPENING (OPE) / -20

VOCALOID2 Kagamine Rin (Act2)
 * BREATHINESS (BRE) / -10
 * BRIGHTNESS (BRI) / -20
 * CLEARNESS (CLE)  / 30
 * GENDER FACTOR (GEN) / 39
 * OPENING (OPE) / -20

Appearances

 * Literature
 * - A manga that portrays Neru as a music teacher (ch6). She later appears as a salesperson (ch7).
 * - A 4-koma that portrays Neru in 'Chibi' form, she is introduced (#54) as a smug and sometimes abrasive friend of Chibi-Miku, Chibi-Neru can sometimes be seen trying to one-up some of the characters. The fandom idea of her having a crush on Len carries over in this series.


 * Video Games
 * - Neru is an available character in the PSP game, Hatsune Miku ~Project Diva~ and again as a playable character in its sequel. In the sequel, Project Diva 2nd, she can be seen throwing a tantrum if the player has not chosen her for a period of time.


 * Other
 * Fanmade Promotional Videos (PV) - Neru, Miku, and are commonly seen in fanmade videos. Fans have dubbed them the Triple Baka after the popular song of the same name.
 * Merchandise - Official licensed Neru figurines have been produced, such as Nendoroid Puchi and a 1/8 scale model.

Trivia

 * Based on the information by the creator, it appears Neru's target of disgust are otakus and those who like moe character types.


 * Her "brother" Akita Nero was conceptualized from the same circumstances as his "sister" went through, on the same official level.


 * The fandom views her relationship with Hatsune Miku as being that of a friendly rivalry and a bit of jealousy, and rarely, antagonistic.
 * A similar relationship with Kagamine Rin is based on her closeness with Kagamine Len.


 * An MMD model of Neru was created in October 2008 by modeler M2 (M2gzb) who used Animasa's Miku as the base. See the page for details, and also see other Neru models.